Fireside Turn Blue
by amor-remanet
Summary: Envy is a new feeling for Luna, and she doesn't like it. WARNINGS: FEMMESLASH GinnyxLuna and LunaxHermione, het GinnyxHarry, snogging, creative use of ties, minor biting, and nonlinear structure.


**Disclaimer: **These characters belong to JK Rowling; I'm just pairing them off and otherwise playing with them. I'll put them back when I'm done.  
**A/N: **Behold, femmeslash! Mostly I'm just taking a break from writing slash with guys. Not to worry, though; I haven't quit entirely.  
**Warnings For:** Girls paired with girls, snogging, creative use of ties, biting, language, envy, and angst-fluff. If none of these are your thing, don't read any further.

What a disaster. What an achingly beautiful, mutilated little mess of a masterpiece. It's almost a pity that the corridor's empty and no one's around to watch the miracle of snowfall in springtime. And as the world gets locked into a comatose, narcotized spiraling, the only two who can observe it are both too far wrapped in its silken, entropic folds to see the beauty of it for what it is. The brunette has her hands on her hips and is trying to restrain herself in the face of reality, and the blonde is trying to stay calm in the eye of the storm.

Luna drums her fingers down her arm, looking at the crowded stones instead of where she should be looking. And, although she knows that she has an obligation and knows the place where her eyes should be, she can't bring herself to raise her head. Everything is so ridiculous anymore, even by her standards, which, she's well aware, are different from everyone else's. And, even with no one else there, Hermione's two eyes feel like so much more than just that. Not some absurdly large amount of them, but enough to make her stop, and they're all the ones that matter – Hermione's, Harry's and Ron's, her father's, Neville's, Ginny's… _Ginny_.

With one gentle touch on her face, Hermione forces Luna to look up.

"I don't appreciate this at all, Luna," she huffs.  
"I'm sorry," the blonde sighs wistfully.  
"I'm sure you are, but, apparently, I have to put this on the table." She inhales deeply and her face takes on a meditative look. "If you're with me, then you're in it for _me_, not for… whatever it is you're playing at."  
"I'm not playing at anything…"  
"I should've figured as much. You don't even know you're doing it."  
"I'm not _doing_-"  
"Just one question: are you in it for me, or for her?"

Luna blinks; although she knows what she should be saying, no words come, let alone the right ones.

Luna sinks onto the stone floor in the archway because, at this point, she isn't sure if she can stand. Getting up here from the lake was effort enough. To ease the disquiet that shakes her limbs like the heads of so many people at her little eccentricities – her Butterbeer cork necklace, for instance – she holds her book bag to her chest and curls her knees up. An invisible weight forces her head down and, obedient for once, she lets it, resting her forehead on her knees. Why won't her mouth stop its fishy opening and closing, and why is her breath shivering in that same way that stars do? That oscillating exchange of expansion and contraction, that far off, gaping yawn… that's what she's doing, and she doesn't want to be doing it.

One of her hands moves upward, groping onto her necklace to make sure it's still there. They were supposed to meet by the lake, right? Her and Ginny? Just like always? It's a Tuesday, and it's springtime now, and they've been going to the lake together on Tuesdays since March of their third year. Shaking and needing some new, tactile sensation, the wandering hand lurches into her hair; her stomach's playing leapfrog with her lungs and her heart's not even involved in this messy game, since it plummeted out of its cavity even before she hit the floor. She just went down to the lake, like always, and Ginny was already there, like always.

But she was there with Harry. At first, they were talking and Luna didn't think about it, so she looked up at the clouds, waiting patiently. Try as she might – and she did try, even though the clouds were plenty distracting on their own – she couldn't stop the noise from hitting her ears and reverberating, bouncing around like eyes on a Quidditch match. And now what she heard has nestled uncomfortably in her ribcage, which is a far too small container for it, and why the world isn't green, she doesn't understand. It all feels like it should be green.

It isn't his fault, of course, and he's a good friend, even took her to Slughorn's Christmas party as a good friend. He can't be blamed that Ginny Weasley is charming… angelic… absorbing… lovely and charismatic… sweet and seductive… a cynosure with autumn leaves for hair… a work of art…

Other words spring to mind and Luna tries to shove them back where they belong. She hasn't ever used them before herself, save in a completely literal and historical context (or repeating them to get a definition out of some girl who was flinging them around about some other girl), and now, when she finds them bashing up against her lips, she feels like she's surrounded by a crowd of people. This time, though, she minds that they're watching and judging, and what they think is a chill terror. She tries to think of anything else – of how OWLs are coming up (she shouldn't have come down in the first place, not with that essay due to Snape), of assignments (there are too many of them), of interesting Muggle art she read about (paintings, different media and techniques, any artist's name would be assistance enough) – and, instead, gets the memory of the clearest time she heard the words.

It was February, Valentine's Day or close to it, of last year. Cho Chang stormed into the Common Room, surrounded by her usual crowd and spewing every colorful term for "a woman of loose morals" she knew… and about Hermione Granger. Luna told her right off for that. Maybe _she_ thought that Harry and Hermione couldn't just be friends, but Hermione would never try anything funny with Harry and he just wasn't that interested in her, and it obviously said something about _Cho_, since she couldn't see past it to care about Harry as a person. And now…

Ginny's the second to last person Luna has ever thought she'd find herself thinking these words about. Naturally, the first is Hermione because, while a bit too rooted sometimes, she just doesn't appear to care that much about relationships. But now… her lips shake, and her voice quavers as lips, tongue, and teeth come together to form viciously delicate syllable.

"Whore…"

Her voice embraces the word like a child while she wants the ability to make it untrue.

Ginny grins as she climbs onto the table, straddling Luna's hips with an expertise whose presence Luna doesn't question. Her Quidditch-weathered fingers (callused, but far more dexterous than any finger of the mind), drumming militaristically on the aged, entirely questionable wood, advance on both sides and then move their tattoo onto Luna's sides. The blonde's face breaks into an honest smile and she can't help laughing; it's an old ticklish spot, probably been there since before she can remember. As Ginny slides her hands under Luna's blouse and vest – the fingers do most of the moving really, blindly leading the adventurously myopic hands as they slide the tops up – the blonde writhes somewhat, a physical consequence of the laughing, and her wrists twist in Ginny's tie. This resistance elicits a laugh from the redhead and she runs the back of her hand down the recently exposed stomach.

With a Cheshire cat smile, she leans down, presses their chests together, which makes the dungeon chill disappear almost entirely. One hand migrates further north and silkily spreads the open collar, letting more of Luna's soft, pale skin leak out.

"Darlin'," she says in a low, throaty voice, "you look good enough to _eat_."  
"I highly doubt that Professor Snape would enjoy wandering in here to find us like this," Luna laughs offhandedly.  
"Maybe, but since when does he enjoy _anything_?" Ginny bites lightly on the skin where Luna's neck meets her shoulder.  
"Dunno… just a thought."  
"For all we know-" a bite on the collarbone, "we'll be giving the old bugger-" a nip on the neck, "the best damn show-" a forceful kiss on the cheek, with the slightest push and gnash of teeth, "he's ever seen."  
"Interesting theory, I think. Please go on?"  
Ginny's eyes glint and she flicks her tongue out between her teeth. "I thought you'd never ask."

She kisses Luna's lips this time with a sweetly elemental dynamic – it's open, warm and welcoming from the very start, and, though she pleases with that snake-like tongue, she's not above teasing. She has her eyes closed and, Luna decides, she must be of the celestial or, at the very least, the superhuman. Imposing a brief sabbatical from beauty on herself, Luna closes her eyes and, somehow or other, though she's entirely unsure of how, this makes her feel closer to Ginny as though, through the union of their mouths, the physical barriers are being completely shirked. Without thinking about it, she squirms felicitously, rubbing her bound wrists together, and she pushes her head up, further into Ginny's. It's amazing that they're not looking at each other, but their noses don't come into conflict.

Yawning and stretching a kink out of her back, Luna reclines lethargically, nestling her head comfortably on Hermione's stomach, which gets her a scratch on the head of recognition. They might be by the lake, but Harry and Ginny aren't there, for once – plus it's a lovely, relaxing day. Perfect for Luna and Hermione to study outdoors and just stop talking and enjoy the unpolluted, winsome, and pastoral grace in a silence that, between anyone else, would be awkward and laden with dying sentences.

Hermione's better for her, Luna thinks. She's nicer, for one thing – Ginny stands up for Luna still, and she's kind, but Hermione doesn't leave Luna dangling in the elements or anything of the sort – and she's smarter. Well, that's not entirely fair. Ginny's intelligent, but Hermione applies herself more and knows more about more things. That certainly helps for discussion, when they have it. Thank God they have it, actually. Try as she might, Luna can't remember a long, drawn-out conversation with Ginny that resulted in something other than snogging. It's sad, tragic, actually, that nothing so good came out of that, but what's passed is past and Luna has Hermione now. Everything's much better.

Then, when taking a break from reviewing birth star charts for Divination, she sees Them – Harry and Ginny, leaving the castle together, his arm around her waist. But Luna doesn't look… tries not to look. It proves rather difficult, really, but she can't be blamed: Ginny has a talent for commanding attention when she isn't paying any or otherwise doesn't mean to. She probably isn't even aware of it, but she's laughing loudly, in enticing and ear-piercing mirth. She and Harry sit down, her between his legs and leaning on him… and he wraps his arms around her waist and Luna feels a chill coagulating in her spine, which stiffens and fails to block it out. Ginny used to do that to her. How can something so warm, so sultry and incandescent, be so frosty? It's hard to tell which arctic terrain is colder: Ginny's uncaring, glacial mass or the frozen, stinging layer she left in Luna's chest.

They never really talked, Luna remembers darkly, because nothing ever had to be said. It's just another one of her pleasant, dreamy little oddities – just another starry-eyed eccentricity – but she didn't _need_ to tell Ginny anything. Ginny just knew. Things are different now. With Hermione, she wants to debate things, and be bluntly honest without being stupid, and illuminate everything that's in her mind; with Ginny, anything she said sounded wrong because the scenes alone were just right. All she needed was the tepid, decadent cadence of eyes and exhalation exchange; now, she catches bits of selfishness, popping up like fish to catch mayflies. And she has no problems with herself in either situation, though she wishes that, if anything would happen, she could stop looking. It makes her feel filthy, like a peering crowd just waiting to see what happens, as if Harry and Ginny are nothing more than a play.

At worst, it makes her feel like another faceless member of Cho Chang and Romilda Vane's throng, peering at the couple around corners and cursing Ginny for having the nerve to date Harry. Her reasons are different, but the actions she'd take are the same. But, admittedly, it's Ginny's nerve that makes her so alluring sometimes. And Luna has Hermione now, so she should have moved past this, hopped up a step and kept all thoughts of Ginny out of her mind.

…But she's _talking_ to Harry. They're not snogging yet, but they will be soon. Luna's seen it happen too many times before to not know the course of things. …They're just taking their time on it today. Even the most voracious beasts can be sated eventually, but it never lasts long with Ginny… so why are they still just talking? It should be hard to tell from here, but the contours of Ginny's face are still fresh memories, and she can see the utterly chimerical look on her face – the look she usually reserved specially for Luna (any time Luna thought she saw it directed at Harry, she always seemed to see something that was never there).

Her skin both burns and freezes; every place Ginny's ever kissed or bitten blazes like a forest fire while her temperature drops into a piercing, envy, turning green out of sickness and the lack of warmth in its extremities. Snapping her head around to look at the lake instead, Luna abruptly shuts her book. In an on-cue response, Hermione scratches the top of her head again.

"Everything alright, Luna?"  
"Yes…" The lies are talking for her.  
"You're sure?"

Before she can think about what she's doing, Luna's straightened up and turned around. She brushes the confused look off like leave fragments and eases the book down; a kiss soon follows. Though a vague voice tells her to consider going leisurely – they have all the time they could want, it argues, and indolence is allowed sometimes – she ignores it and has Hermione's mouth open in less than a minute. They merge there, tilting their heads so any facial conflict is prevented, and the brunette makes such an exhilarating moan when Luna finally takes a lesson from Ginny. Slowing the process some, she drags her tongue across the roof of Hermione's mouth, then the moan, and then her hand is pressed on Hermione's thigh, working its way up under her skirt.

Luna opens her eyes once, just to sneak a look at Harry and Ginny. They still haven't snogged and she leans more into Hermione, pressing her back against the tree.

Ginny's dress robes aren't of the best quality, and they're certainly not as showy as some of the other girls', but she still stands out, and only in the very good way. Even from across the Great Hall, when she's supposed to be listening to Anthony's ideas on charms theory (what she makes out is interesting) because he asked her to come as a friend, Luna is consistently distracted by the red hair, freckles, and red dress robes that aren't properly filled out. She really doesn't want to stop paying attention to Anthony, at least not at the front of her mind, because he did ask her to come as a friend, and he is nice, if a bit too into numbers and the rules and keeping things orderly, but she keeps catching her eyes drift dreamily to Ginny and trace the softly contouring skin down to the too-big bust.

Luna makes a point of dancing – she's leading, she thinks, but it's too hard to tell for sure; neither her nor Anthony really has a grasp on what to do. More often than not, it's less dancing and more trying to avoid Fred Weasley and Angelina Johnson, who seem to think that they own the dance floor. Through all the people and even the manic Weasley-Johnson jerking, she keeps navigating more towards Ginny and Neville, as if locked in chase. Perhaps due to Neville's two left feet, they mostly just move where the crowd shoves them; Luna follows dutifully and even gets a few straying smiles.

As the night winds down, Anthony leaves early (poor boy gets tired from socializing) and Neville disappears into… somewhere else. Hovering ambiguously, Luna watches around a group of Beauxbatons girls as Ginny finally takes her shoes off. They're pretty, also very red, and probably the only new thing Ginny has on; Luna took her own off much earlier and absently runs her fingers over the beaded detailing as she watches. Finally, she takes her hand off them and goes over to the redhead.

"Abandoned?" she asks pleasantly.  
Ginny laughs with a slight, sweet exasperation. "Yeah… I think I exhausted Neville."  
"Ah. I'm more surprised he didn't exhaust you, stepping on your feet and everything."  
"Looks like you gave Goldstein a run for his galleons…"  
"I don't think he gets out much…"  
"Oh… makes sense, I guess. …Care for a dance?"

Luna smiles and nods, and, with a barely exhausted grin, Ginny leads her to the dance floor. If anyone notices, they either don't care or hide their feelings well, for which Luna is unspeakably grateful. She doesn't mind what they might think, but she doesn't want anything to ruin this moment. Any longer and she would have asked, but she's rather glad that Ginny did.

The windowsill, while not exactly warm even though it's spring and should be, is the perfect place to just get away from everything. If only she could just blot out the little part of grass by the lake where Harry and Ginny are busy snogging, it'd all be perfect. Well… blot that out and take away the wind, and then it'd be exactly how she wants it to be. Perhaps not exactly, it certainly wouldn't be as untarnished and utopian as she wants but, just like the previous summer's trip to Sweden, few things ever were. Regrettably, she has to admit sometimes that certain parts of existence simply fail to live up to her expectations. It's not the most pleasant thing to have to concede and eventually accept, but… it's inevitable, unfortunately.

Ginny lives up to expectations, though, exceeds them even. She's always incredibly nice, especially when no one else is – she hasn't ever seemed to care what other people think of Luna, which is one of the best things about her when coupled with her vivacity. She's daring, but not a show-off or a fool like her older brothers, though Luna will agree with everyone else for once, since she too found that their escape spectacle last year was more than mere entertainment. It was probably the principles behind the mess and commotion. …She _thought_ that Ginny had principles. At least, until very recently, the bewitching redhead has always been able to act like she does: she backs Dumbledore and Harry, and did so before it was popular; she stands up for Luna, even though Luna doesn't mind the things that others say; she's loyal, or she's supposed to be.

Maybe, it occurs to Luna as she watches the two of them roll on the grass like puppies… maybe, she's just been loyal to Harry this whole time. There was the Valentine's Day card, and she's said that he was her first love. With that in mind, it's entirely possible that Neville, and Michael Corner, and Dean Thomas were all just charades. At the very least, Luna knows that Ginny was never especially "into" Neville and that Michael and Dean were almost entirely physical, at least on Ginny's end. Though, when she dumped Michael, he spent two weeks or more in a spiritless melancholy, and any subject at all could go back to Ginny in some way; after two weeks, Luna stopped paying that close attention. At the time, she still had reasonable access to those lips and still got to feel them as they tauntingly brushed across every inch of her skin.

Through all the boys, Ginny kept Luna, and the blonde supposes that this is why she's taking it with such difficulty, but why should Harry be any different? He's not a nervous, clumsy herbologist, a Shakespeare-reciting and entirely clueless lover boy, or a sensitive, aesthetic artist, but he's the same when they get down to it: he's a boy. Granted, he's The Boy Who Lived or The Chosen One or whatever the _Daily Prophet_'s calling him these days – who really keeps track? – but he's still just a boy. He doesn't _really_ understand, or that's what Ginny always said: boys are fun, but they don't really know anything, let alone the first thing about what girls need. And that's what Luna's always been for, a purpose that she's invariably been content – no, subtly euphoric – with this purpose.

Now, the story's as different as it can be: she sees where he was coming from, she feels his pain, she doesn't want to seem clingy but she can't stop looking, and, worst of all, Cho now has words for Ginny – "whore" is still there, along with "shameless hussy," "slag," "tart," "floozy," and the brutally to the point "slut" – and Luna never speaks out against them when Ginny still would for her. She closes her eyes with the image of Ginny pinning Harry (he isn't resisting it, it's obvious even from this far away, and Luna knows why… she doesn't blame him at all) and lingering, letting their breaths mingle before appeasing his addiction. With her arms crossed over her chest and her hands on her shoulders, Luna recalls the beautiful harassment from sensory memory alone, even down past the simplicity of Ginny's callused hands on her wrists to the pastiche and potpourri their exhalations made: hers a cool, minty mist, and Ginny's humid and vaguely tasting like her last meal and the sugar quills she sucked (still sucks) in class.

The recollection makes her shudder, or maybe it's the rushing mixture of sudden warmth and wind, and she grabs tighter onto her shoulders, screwing her face up to keep from yelping. Only Ginny is supposed to make her feel like this – not anyone else, herself included, not the wind, nothing and no one. She saves the sensation of a tightened stomach and constricted lungs for Ginny and Ginny only… she should move on, though. Ginny has, obviously, and it's just in the natural progression of things. But the smoke exchanging excitation is Ginny's…

A gasp comes when she feels a warm hand on her ankle… and anyone can get that. She snaps her eyes open to find Hermione leaning against the wall and conspicuously attached to the hand. Her shoulder is, as usual, laden down with her over-stuffed book-bag, and her face has a sympathetic air of concern.

"Neville said you'd be up here," she says simply. "What's going on?"

It's strange, but… in this light, or maybe it's just that her hand's on Luna's ankle, which prevents her nerves from getting excited by a memory, or maybe sleepless nights have some positive effects – however it's happening, Hermione manages to distract Luna from Ginny, for the first time in years.

Valentine's Day in her first year is an enjoyable experience. Though she can't say that she's at all fond of the pink – tolerable in doses, the sheer amount of the color that's scattered absolutely everywhere is tasteless, amongst other things. And the cupids are just unnecessary. Distracting at their best, she thinks.

One shows up in the hallway as she's going to Transfiguration. She's looking at the corner of the corridor – she could swear that there was something there just a moment ago… maybe dad would know – and then she whips around to the source of a nasally voice. Right as she's trying to process why there is a small, funny-looking little man in a toga standing about the hallway, he starts to sing (which is even more annoying than his normal voice).

"His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad, his hair is as dark as a black board. I wish he was mine, he's really divine, the hero who conquered the Dark Lord."

On the floor, that Harry Potter boy looks incredibly frustrated, and he's blushing crimson, which is somewhat amusing. Looking around at the other activity in the hallway, Luna finds a girl whose face is redder than her hair… a Gryffindor, or so says the emblem on her robes… and they've met before – she was actually nice to Luna, which most people aren't. …Right! Her name's Ginny, that's what she said the only other time they met. …She decidedly doesn't look well: in addition to the blush, she looks ill and Luna doesn't think she's slept. Shrugging off any potential consequences, she wanders over to her.

"Are you alright?" she says earnestly; Ginny jumps back, then looks at her and sighs, relieved.  
"Oh. Luna, hi," she pants.  
"…I'm sorry if I scared you. Are you alright?"  
"No, no, it's okay… and… yeah. It's just… I… I kind of sent him that…"

…And suddenly, for whatever reason, the trite, rhyming card seems unspeakably cute.


End file.
